BCCI gets request for Rs 25 crore grant from AIFF

Mumbai: The Indian Cricket Board (BCCI) today revealed that the All India Football Federation has sought from them a Rs 25 crore grant for the development of the game in the country.
"Praful Patel (acting President of the AIFF) has approached us for a grant of Rs 25 crore for the development of football," said BCCI`s Finance Committee Chairman Rajiv Shukla here today.

Patel had neither confirmed nor denied news reports last month if the AIFF had asked the BCCI a one-time grant of Rs 10 crore to prepare the national team for the 2011 Asia Cup for which India have qualified after a long gap.

Shukla said the BCCI was now thinking whether it was better to give grants directly to the federations running other sports or support them through the government.

The BCCI had created a corpus of Rs 50 crore in 2008 by setting up the National Sports Development Fund for supporting five games - swimming, archery, judo, wrestling and shooting.

It has also given individual grants in the past to tennis player Karan Rastogi (Rs 40 lakh), squash player Aditya Jagtap (Rs 26 lakh) and shuttler Anand Pawar (Rs 14 lakh) as part of its policy to finance their training and participation.